The handrail on the tub was coated with ice, but the water was toasty.

I propped my chin on a snowy ledge so I could look at frozen Lake Tremblant beside me and reclined in the water to gaze at the snowflakes, stinging my face just a little before they melted into swirls of steam.

Icicles formed in my hair as I decided to do the proper Nordic thing and take a dip in the adjoining cold pool -- around 50 degrees Fahrenheit. I made it in only up to my waist before I retreated to the hot tub. My skin felt like it had been pricked by tiny pins.

That's what's supposed to happen. Open the pores with heat, close them again with cold. Repeat several times and then plunk down on a chaise longue to relax. Completely. Ahhhhhhh.

With spas offering similar "treatments," the ones that most interest me as a traveler are those inspired by their environment. In snowy Quebec Province, for instance, there are several spas with hot and cold Nordic baths.

Among them is Le Scandinave Spa in Mont-Tremblant, a resort area noted in wintertime for its skiing and other cold-weather sports.

A wooden bridge in an evergreen forest leads to the spa's reception building, one of several rustic pine buildings that are interspersed among pools of hot and cold water, some with waterfalls. At the foot of the hillside property is the ice-cold Riviere du Diable.

Unlike the Quintessence spa, where Nordic bathing is one small part of the spa experience and the emphasis is on facials, wraps and massages, Le Scandinave is all about taking the plunge, with a limited menu of massages as a bonus.

Although I huddled in an oversized bathrobe and kept my boots on, toughened Quebeckers wandered the 10-acre premises in bikinis and flip-flops. The warm hot pool was delightful, but I only got so far as dunking my finger in the cold one where the locals frolicked like polar bears.

Nevertheless, the relaxation room with its "zero gravity" reclining chairs and the soothing sound of a fountain elicited sufficient bliss. I could happily have stayed there a long time, looking out at the snowy woods.

This is, in fact, what many people do. For $43, they spend the day in the baths, steam room and sauna, buying lunch at a food counter in the reception building (soup, sandwiches, salads, pastries, beverages) and eating in front of the fireplace or around a large, plank table in an adjoining room, where they can watch deer coming out of the woods to use the salt lick.

For a spa experience at the other end of the temperature spectrum, try the Caribbean, where there are quite a few spas that use medicinal plants that grow abundantly in the tropics. I lolled for a few days at Rosewood Little Dix Bay on Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands, where facial masks are concocted from plants harvested on the property, and where guests await their massages next to an infinity pool.

A frangipani tree with waxy, white blossoms perfumed the patio outside the treatment room where I was to receive a facial. Beyond the tree was a wall for privacy and the turquoise blue Caribbean Sea breaking rhythmically against a sandy beach.

Gaetane Parkins, the aesthetician, had decorated the room with large, pink-red hibiscus flowers, which she had picked that morning. She also had been busy whipping up a batch of neem and aloe to apply to my face. Neem is used in the Caribbean for its antiseptic properties, and aloe is known to soothe and heal the skin.

I lay on my back on the massage table and Gaetane got to work, cleaning my skin with jojoba oil blended with a few drops of juniper, peppermint and lemon.

It smelled good. I closed my eyes and listened to the sea as Gaetane progressed to the scrub of cornmeal, oatmeal, a quarter of a green apple and honey.

"Did you make that today, too?" I asked her sleepily.

No, she told me. She makes it in large batches and freezes it.

My mind was floating and my muscles must have relaxed because I felt cool.

Toner. Warm towels around my face. Steam.

Gaetane applied more toner and then massaged my face with apricot oil mixed with essential oils of chamomile, roses and lavender.

Then came the neem. It felt cool and goopy and smelled like grass.

When I was all green, I asked for my camera to take a picture. The aloe itched a little and the goop was dripping around my ears. No matter. This was the funniest thing I'd seen in a while.

After a few minutes, Gaetane scraped the goop away and applied more toner and moisturizer of aloe and lavender oil.

I took another picture. I was glowing -- silly with amusement and happy to have such a fine, shining face.

The neem and aloe facial, a signature treatment of the spa at Rosewood Little Dix Bay, is one of several signature treatments that utilize natural, local ingredients.

A body wrap designed to moisturize and soften the skin is made with goat's milk, honey and bananas. The foot and calf scrub used in the pedicure is concocted with salt from nearby Salt Island, mixed with tropical oils. Another scrub is made with mangoes, pineapple and sugar.

Glen Ross, Little Dix's spa director, wants to go even more in that direction, using indigenous ingredients wherever possible because "when they're fresher, they're more potent."

We talk about bush medicine, which interests him. He wonders if he can learn things from Virgin Islands herbalists that could be translated into treatments at the spa.

With or without these enhancements, the spa is memorably beautiful -- perched on the crest of a hill overlooking the Sir Francis Drake Channel. The rooms and pavilions are built of stone and wood, linked by stone paths lined with dense, flower-bearing foliage.